


The Curious Case of the Doctor and the Cat

by FernDavant



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, Comedy, F/M, Fluff, Gen, light Doctor/Clara, the Doctor talks to cats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 03:53:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6549475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FernDavant/pseuds/FernDavant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Master of the Seven Blocks Rusty Grr'wa is a cat, a Good Boy with a simple life. He must protect and patrol his Seven Blocks, generously let select People pet his incredible fur, and look after the Stacy, the Mum, and the Dad. Then he runs into not-People the Doctor and the Doctor's Clara Oswald. And then they must all deal with the Sky-thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Curious Case of the Doctor and the Cat

**Author's Note:**

> Look. I wanted to write a story from the point-of-view of a cat. Don't judge me. Also, I am a firm believer in the triple-name scheme for naming cats, put forth by TS Eliot in "The Naming of Cats." Google it.

Master of the Seven Blocks Rusty Grr’wa eyed the man standing in the middle of the garden carefully, his body crouched, his tail tucked low, pressed as closely to the brick wall of one of the Homes as he could be. The bushes shaded him, and with every step he barely made a sound.

The man was different from normal people. The man _wasn’t_ normal People—that had been the problem that had made Grr’wa interested in him in the first place. The man did not smell of People or Shops or Out. The man did not smell of any smell that Grr’wa had ever smelled, and Grr’wa was nearly eight-years-old, not an ancient, by any means, but certainly not a kitten.

The man did smell a wee bit like bacon, though, so rather than ignoring him entirely, Grr’wa had decided to Hunt him.

When the man’s eyes met Grr’wa’s, he could see now that this was a mistake. The man was not good Prey like most People. He had sharp blue eyes. He knew how to hunt, and would not need to be gifted mice or birds like the Stacy or the Mum or the Dad. He had spotted Grr’wa easily, even though Grr’wa was undisputed Master of the Seven Blocks and as a Hunter, renowned for his subtlety.  

Grr’wa would have to mark his territory fiercely after the man left.

But the man did not seem to want the Seven Blocks.

“Hello,” the man said.

Grr’wa played it cool, tail flicking. “Hello, not People.”

“Ah,” the man replied, shoving his hands into his pockets. “You could tell that.”

Grr’wa froze again. The man was speaking to him. This was not unusual—plenty of People spoke to him and cooed at him. Grr’wa had beautiful orange fur that was soft and spotless, for he groomed it for hours every day. All People wanted to pet him, but he guarded that privilege closely. All People told him how lovely he was, and Grr’wa would agree, perhaps say a few words about Hunting or Weather, and then be about his way. But the People never listened. The People never understood. They were misguided and clumsy.

But this man seemed to understand him.

“You understand me?” Grr’wa asked. He hoped he wasn’t wrong about this. If Fierce-tailed Labrador Princess Boofarf found out, she wouldn’t stop laughing at him.

“Of course I understand you,” the man responded with a scowl. “Why wouldn’t I? I speak cat.”

“Why are you out in the open?” Grr’wa asked, still hidden in the bushes, eyes constantly searching his periphery. “I can tell you are not Prey, but an experienced Hunter. And yet you stand stockstill, in the middle of the grass, where anyone could see you. Even Stacy could see you, and she has much to learn.”

“Well, my friend told me to stay put,” the man said.

“Your friend told you to Stay and you Stayed?” Grr’wa scoffed. “Why would you do that?”

“She’s quite a good friend,” the man protested.

“How good is the food that she Hunts for you? Is she the one with the bacon?”

“Oh!” the man said suddenly, pulling a package out of his pockets. “No, I have the bacon. Did you want bacon? What’s your name by the way?”

Grr’wa looked very closely around and then padded delicately towards the man, body low to the ground. He had to protect himself, but he wasn’t stupid enough to turn down bacon.

The man squatted down to Grr’wa, letting him smell the bacon. When Grr’wa approved, the man slowly offered him bits, placing them gently on the grass. None of the hand-feeding business that the Stacy tried. Good.

“I am Master of the Seven Blocks Rusty Grr’wa,” Grr’wa said between bites of bacon.

“All seven of these blocks are yours?” the man asked, looking about a bit. “I’m the Doctor, by the way.”

“Yes,” Grr’wa said, sitting then, licking fiercely at his paw and dragging it across his head. “Impressed?”

“Very,” the Doctor agreed.

“So, if your friend does not Hunt, then why are you waiting here?” Grr’wa said after a few more moments of pointed grooming, just so the Doctor understood what a beautiful boy he really was.

“She gets quite cross when I don’t do as I’m told,” the Doctor admitted, looking a bit awkward. “See, she hopped a fence. I’m supposed to be a lookout. We’re looking for something potentially quite dangerous, and I’m a strict no-fence-hopping diet. Last time I hopped a fence I kicked a hole in it. She’s smaller than me, so we’ve decided to leave that to her.”

“Tree-dwellers,” Grr’wa scoffed. “With the climbing and the hopping and the perching. Ridiculous. I, like you, am a bush-dweller. Clearly the superior way to hunt.”

“I’m not sure that Clara’s a tree-dweller, really,” the Doctor mused. “Although her flat is up quite a few flights of stairs. And she has a balcony. Actually, Grr’wa, this explains a great deal.”

“It is a sound strategy for you to be a lookout,” Grr’wa said. “What are you two Hunting?”

At this the Doctor pulled out a pair of the strange black coverings People sometimes wore on their face to obscure their eyes. He put them on, and they made a whirring noise that Grr’wa found deeply unpleasant. He almost bolted, but the Doctor seemed to be a good sort of not-People, so Grr’wa merely hunkered down instead.

“Something crashed here. From space. It’s emitting a signal. We’ve tracked it to, well, this roughly seven block area, coincidentally. Can’t have space stuff about in a perfectly normal neighborhood. It needs to be dealt with,” the Doctor explained.

“Oh, the Sky-thing,” Grr’wa said. “Yes. It made a great noise when it crashed. I saw where it went down. I did not investigate it, but not because I am scared. It is because I am not stupid like a dog. I plan to live until I’m at least 15.”

The Doctor pulled the strange-eye coverings off suddenly. “Do you think you could show me where it is?”

“I will lead you to the area, but I am not willing to sniff at it or even bat my paw at it,” Grr’wa huffed. “As I said, I am not stupid like a dog. I have Seven Blocks to protect, after all.”

“Completely understandable,” the Doctor agreed. “Alright, let’s go!”

The Doctor ran off in a random direction. Grr’wa noticed that he was _not_ graceful. The way he leaned forward like that, you’d think he was four-legged as well, and his gait was embarrassing as well. There was something more important to consider, however, and Grr’wa did not follow after the Doctor.

Instead, Grr’wa did the cat equivalent of clearing his throat, and said, “Shouldn’t we find Your Clara first?”

“Oh,” the Doctor said, skidding to a halt, and almost toppling over. “Yes. Good point.”

“She jumped that fence?” Grr’wa asked, head tilting towards the offending wooden barrier.

“Yeah,” the Doctor confirmed.

“Right, there’s a hole in it around the side,” Grr’wa said, beginning to trot off in that direction. “That way you will not add another hole in the fence by hopping it.”

“That—that wouldn’t have happened,” the Doctor protested weakly, following Grr’wa as he spoke.

Grr’wa and the Doctor squeezed through the fence, Grr’wa with ease, the Doctor with less ease, being several feet taller than Grr’wa, but they both managed. After Grr’wa had shown the Doctor the hole in the fence, the Doctor took point, Grr’wa searching the periphery and keeping an eye on the Doctor’s back. They were a good team, Grr’wa thought, or at least they would be if the Doctor didn’t insist upon bungling right in the center of the back garden, rather than keeping to the fence line or the bushes.

Speaking of the bushes, with sudden alacrity, an arm shot out from one of them, grabbed the Doctor by his jacket, and pulled him in. Grr’wa rushed to follow the Doctor, hackles raised, hissing.

“Don’t!” the Doctor said. “This is my Clara!”

“ _Your_ Clara?” the female People who had been hiding in the bush asked, eyebrows raised.

“A Clara,” the Doctor sputtered. “The Clara. Clara Clara.”

“You know, sometimes you say my name so much it doesn’t even sound like a real—“ Clara began, but then she spotted Grr’wa and her complaining tone changed to a coo. “Oh, look at this gorgeous cat!”

“Yes,” Grr’wa agreed smugly. “I am a gorgeous cat. Thank you for noticing.”

The Doctor’s Clara reached out a hand to Grr’wa gently, and Grr’wa sniffed. She smelled good, at least compared to other People, like Outdoors but with something fruity, plus she had kind eyes, and Grr’wa could tell she was definitely Cat People (whatever that meant, but other People had used the phrase before, and it was definitely something which could be sensed, so he was going with it). Between that and the fact that the Doctor had vouched for her, Grr’wa head-butted the Doctor’s Clara’s hand, granting her the gift of touching his fur.

Grr’wa had underestimated the Doctor’s Clara’s many charms, however. Pretty soon he was purring, and then Chin Scritching had progressed to Belly Rubbing, and suddenly Grr’wa was blissed out on his back, eyes half shut.

“Are we seriously doing this now?” the Doctor hissed.

“Sorry,” Clara said, attempting to take her hand away from Grr’wa’s belly, even as Grr’wa trapped it with all four of his paws.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” the Doctor shot. “I was talking to him.”

“Perhaps if you took better care of it, she would be more eager to touch your fur,” Grr’wa purred imperiously.

The Doctor shot him a look, but ran his hand through his hair several times in quick succession.

“Oh God,” Clara said with a sigh, slowly extracting her hand from Grr’wa’s grasp. “You speak cat, don’t you?”

“Yes,” the Doctor admitted, a little shame-faced. “He knows where the thing is. The thing that crashed. The space thing.”

 “We’re going to follow a cat to find some space rubbish,” Clara said, rolling her eyes harder than Grr’wa had ever seen any People do.

“That’s the plan, yes,” the Doctor admitted. “And, erm, to introductions. Clara, this is Master of the Seven Blocks Rusty Grr’wa. Grr’wa, this is Clara Oswald.”

“You are kind, and I shall give you the gift of smelling like me,” Grr’wa said, purring and rubbing against Clara.

“Hello beautiful boy,” Clara said, scratching him under the chin again. “I’m guessing whatever he’s saying is nice, yeah?”

“He’s giving you the gift of smelling like him,” the Doctor offered.

Clara scrunched up her face. “Both of you are weird. Come on, let’s go to wherever this space junk is. But how about this time, Doctor, you try not to trounce right in the middle of people’s gardens, yeah?”

“She is wise,” Grr’wa said, giving Clara’s hand one last head-butt before trotting off in the direction of the hole in the fence, confident that the others would follow him.

“Maybe a bit,” the Doctor grumbled reluctantly.

“It’s rude to have a conversation right in front of someone, knowing they can’t participate in them,” Clara tsked.

The Doctor flapped his hands.

Grr’wa led the Doctor and Clara to the edge of his territory, near a little patch of trees. The three of them crept into the wooded area, walking on for a few minutes before Grr’wa stopped abruptly.

“It is close,” Grr’wa said. “I can smell it. It smells funny like you.”

“How far away is it?” the Doctor asked, kneeling near the cat and whispering.

“Thirty or so cat-lengths,” Grr’wa replied.

“I—do you know what that is in metric?” the Doctor said as Clara kneeled next to him, her gaze darting from cat-to-man and back again.

“What is metric?” Grr’wa queried.

“The cat’s not going to know metric,” Clara said. “What did he say?”

“Thirty or so cat-lengths,” the Doctor groused. “Whatever that means.”

“With or without counting the tail?”

“You never count the tail,” Grr’wa said with a haughty laugh.

“No tail,” the Doctor translated.

“Right, that’s about 46 centimeters, so thirty of them, that’s 1,380 centimeters, so about 14 meters,” Clara calculated.

The Doctor was gaping at her.

Clara blushed. “Look. I like cats, okay. I had a cat fact book. Average cat is 46 centimeters long, not including tail. I didn’t look at you like this when you knew the CMYK code for the exact shade of the TARDIS, yeah?”

Grr’wa nudged the Doctor. “Tell her that she can live in my domain if she would like and pet my fur as frequently as she desires. She can even have exclusive hunting rights to all birds in three blocks of her choice. I am loath to split resources, but she will be an asset to protecting the land. She is wise and fierce.”

“The cat wants you to help protect his lands. He’ll let you kill birds and pet him whenever you want,” the Doctor said.

“Not _all_ birds,” Grr’wa corrected.

“He thinks you’re wise and fierce,” the Doctor added, completely ignoring Grr’wa’s bird comment, much to Grr’wa’s disdain. “I may be paraphrasing a bit.”

Clara covered her mouth, leaving both the Doctor and Grr’wa puzzled. They did not realize that she was trying desperately not to laugh at them.

After a long moment, Clara let out a little puff of breath, pulled herself together, and then said, “So, what’s the plan?”

“Is it alive?” the Doctor asked, turning to Grr’wa. “Whatever’s ahead, I mean.”

“Yes,” Grr’wa affirmed.

“Is it scary looking?” the Doctor questioned further.

“I told you; I’m not a fool. I did not look at it,” Grr’wa responded.

“Let’s just approach it slowly, scout things out, make a plan from there,” Clara suggested.

“If it Hunts, it will smell us,” Grr’wa said.

“It likely would have smelled us already if it was that good at hunting,” the Doctor argued.

“Not necessarily. Wind’s blowing away from us. Blowing our scent away,” Clara said. “Also, do you realize how difficult it is to have a conversation with a space alien and a cat when you only understand about half of what’s going on?”

“Still, if its senses are that weak, then surely we three can successfully Hunt and Kill it. Perhaps even eat it if we deem it tasty?”

“I thought you didn’t want to get any closer? I thought you said this was too dangerous and foolish,” the Doctor pointed out.

Grr’wa sniffed. “Well, I got curious.”

“Well, you know what they say about curiosity,” the Doctor said.

“No,” Grr’wa replied blankly. “No, I do not. What do they say?”

“Never mind,” the Doctor groaned. “Let’s just go forward, take a look, and improvise. That always works.”

“That never works,” Clara countered.

“It always works,” the Doctor protested feebly. “Just, occasionally, some really interesting things happen before it works.”

Even Grr’wa rolled his eyes at that. Nonetheless, Clara and the cat assented, and all three of them crept forward.

Shortly, Grr’wa, the Doctor, and Clara came to a halt. There was a scuffling sound ahead. The trees of the area had been flattened or burnt away, a great crater appearing. At the center of the crater was the twisted remains of an item that even Grr’wa recognized: a cage. And off to one side of the crater, making the noise that the trio had heard, was a massive furry creature, sharp claws ripping up tree roots indiscriminately.

“Throkgar,” the Doctor whispered to the others. “Less than savory aliens smuggle them about this system. Even less savory aliens like to use them as guard dogs or in fighting rings. If I had to hazard a guess, a freighter was probably smuggling it, ran into the Shadow Proclamation, and jettisoned the cargo rather than being caught.”

“Guessing it’s not cuddly?” Clara asked.

“No. It is dumb, though, which explains why it hasn’t detected us.”

“What is our plan of attack?” Grr’wa said.

“Incapacitate it, re-capture it, and take it back to the TARDIS,” the Doctor offered.

“Yeah, how are we going to do that?” Clara questioned.

“See that tree branch?” the Doctor pointed. “It’s been damaged by the crash. It looks heavy enough that if it was jarred free, it would probably knock the creature out. Grr’wa, do you think you could climb that tree and knock the branch free while I taunted the Throkgar into position?”

“I am not heavy or strong enough to do that,” Grr’wa said. “Your Clara Oswald should do it.”

“He’s not heavy or strong enough for that,” Clara echoed almost simultaneously. “I’ll have to do it.”

“No, Clara, this could be dangerous and—“ the Doctor stopped and looked around confusedly mid-sentence.

“She has already run off,“ Grr’wa confirmed, eyes following Clara as she quickly and quietly made her way towards the tree with the precarious branch. “You are significantly less competent than you first appear.”

“Yeah, thanks,” the Doctor growled, scuttling off in preparation to attract the Throkgar’s attention.

Grr’wa tried to find an angle to watch both of them. Clara had just moved into position and given the Doctor a thumbs up, and the Doctor had just burst out of the tree-line hollering incoherently to attract the Throkgar’s notice, when something unexpected and terrible happened.

“Rusty!” a little girl’s voice shouted, the echo of the sound indicating that she was approaching the trio. “I saw you go in here. Here, kitty, kitty, kitty.”

Grr’wa (Rusty) froze. The Doctor froze. Clara froze. The monster froze. Basically, everything froze, trapped in a moment.

Then, time remembered how to keep working again, and everything snapped into place.

“I am much more interesting and tastier than a small human child!” the Doctor shouted, waving his arms about absurdly.

The monster juked towards the Doctor, Clara kicked the branch free, but even as the branch was falling, the girl’s voice shouted, once again, “Rusty!” and the monster shot off in the direction of the shout. The branch fell harmlessly behind the monster who was galloping towards the girl, Grr’wa’s girl, the Stacy.

Grr’wa rushed on an intercept course towards the Throkgar, barely registering in his periphery that Clara had jumped down from the tree and that the Doctor was chasing after the creature as well.

The Stacy appeared, bursting into the crater, then. She was a girl of about seven or eight, chubby cheeked and with close cropped hair that framed her face. “Rusty!” she said happily, noticing only Grr’wa at first, but her eyes grew wider as she spotted the Throkgar that was stampeding towards her. Stacy screamed, bursting into tears immediately.

Grr’wa raised his hackles, every inch of his fur puffing up, making himself as big as possible. He turned towards the Throkgar, teeth bared as he let out a mighty yowl, shifting his weight in preparation to spring at the creature. He was not a dog, and he was not an idiot. But he was the Master of the Seven Blocks and he was the Stacy’s Good Boy. He had a duty. If he took ownership of the Blocks, then he must also protect them. Most importantly, he could never fail to protect Stacy.

With a fierce battle cry, Grr’wa sprang upon the Throkgar, clawing at the creature’s eyes and face, doing the best he could to slow its pursuit of Stacy, and to distract it so that the Doctor and Clara might find a way to subdue the beast.

The beast stopped well before he was within striking distance of Stacy, bellowing and grabbing at his own face, trying to remove Grr’wa from his face as the cat bit and hissed and clawed. The creature finally wrapped its claws around Grr’wa and flung the cat away from his face.

But by now, the Throkgar was half blind and disoriented, its face bloodied. The Throkgar staggered around, bewildered enough to allow the Doctor to shoulder check it away from Stacy, right into Clara, who was wielding the tree branch like a club now. With a great swing, Clara whacked the beast in the side of the head, and the monster dropped to the ground with a loud thud.

Briefly, all was quiet, except for the sounds of Stacy softly crying.

“Is it dead?” the Doctor asked, nudging the Throkgar with his shoe. “Or just unconscious?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Clara said, rushing over to comfort the crying girl.

“Where’s Rusty?” Stacy asked, looking up at Clara with watery eyes.

“Erm,” Clara said, looking around.

“Erm,” the Doctor asked, finally spotting a small orange lump in the grass confirming his worst suspicions.

Clara, Stacy, and the Doctor rushed over to Master of the Seven Blocks Rusty Grr’wa, who was lying on his side, bruised and bloodied from the creature’s claws, breathing labored.

“Did you see?” Grr’wa asked softly. “Did anyone see? I did a thing. I was very dangerous seeming. I was a fierce predator. It was a very neat thing.”

“It was a magnificent thing,” the Doctor agreed, slipping on his strange black eye coverings and whirring at Grr’wa, stroking Grr’wa’s fur softly. Grr’wa didn’t mind him touching his fur so much now. He was cold, and the Doctor’s hand was warm.

The Doctor took his black eye covers off and tucked them into his pocket. He looked at Clara over Stacy’s head, as Stacy bent down to whisper at Grr’wa. Clara stared back at him. The Doctor gave a little shake of his head.

“Is Rusty going to be alright?” Stacy asked suddenly, peering at the Doctor and Clara with watery eyes. “You can fix him, yeah?”

“I am near Death,” Grr’wa said with a soft sigh. “But I protected the Stacy.”

Clara pinched the Doctor, then whispered, “We can fix him, yeah?”

“Clara,” the Doctor said, pulling her closer and hopefully, out of earshot of Stacy. “Damnit Clara, I’m a doctor, not a vet. And I’m only kind of a doctor. What do you want me to do?”

“Something clever,” Clara hissed. “I swear to god, Doctor, if you let this little girl’s cat die, I will kill you.”

“That’s not—Clara. You are not a child. You know that I can’t go around saving every cat in the—ow, stop pinching me—I can’t save every little girl’s cat—oh, no. Stop. You’re doing the eyes. Don’t. Don’t do the eyes.”

“I am a Good Boy, yes?” Grr’wa asked faintly as Stacy cried over him.

“Such a good boy,” the Doctor agreed. “But not going to die today. Because I am a stupid man. I really have to stop doing this. And you really better hope that you convinced the Time Lords to give me just a ridiculous amount of regeneration energy, Clara. And both of you need to stop your eyes.”

The Doctor heaved a sigh, and nudged Stacy aside gently, placing a hand flat against Grr’wa. A soft golden glow suffused the cat. The deep claw marks knitted themselves together, and though his fur was still matted with blood, his eyes had become bright again.

The golden light faded, and Grr’wa took in his first deep breath in minutes. He sneezed. It was adorable.

“Wow,” Stacy said, staring at the Doctor. “What did you do?”

“A magic trick,” the Doctor said. He gave a wink.

“Who are you?” Stacy asked in awe.

“Magicians,” Clara improvised. “Passing through. Slaying monsters. Talking to your cat.”

“Cool,” Stacy replied, mulling over the idea in her head, and clearly deciding that it made as much sense as anything else she’d experienced today.

“But,” Clara said, holding up a finger. “We’re secret magicians. We’re happy to help out, but you can’t tell anyone our secrets. Especially not grown-ups.”

“Alright,” Stacy said, nodding fervently.

Clara put a finger to her lips. Stacy mimicked the motion. The Doctor looked at Clara confusedly, but Clara just elbowed him and gave a little shrug, clearly satisfied with how this whole interaction was going.

Grr’wa stood up, finally, a bit unsteady on his feet. “I am not Dead?” he asked, examining himself thoroughly, before letting out a horrified noise. “Oh, no! My fur! Look at the state of it.”

“Small price to play for not being dead,” the Doctor said. “Stop your whinging.”

Grr’wa glared at the Doctor and began furiously grooming himself, licking the blood off as quickly as he could manage.

“Oh!” the Doctor said, jumping up quickly and examining the Throkgar. “Unconscious.”

“Can we eat it?” Grr’wa asked with interest. They had, after all, Hunted the monster fair and square.

“No!” the Doctor huffed dismissively, pulling a syringe out of his coat pocket and injecting the animal. “There. That should keep him unconscious for a while. We can bundle him into the TARDIS and then drop him off into the wilds of his home planet. Hopefully he won’t get captured again by smugglers.”

“How about we get you home, huh?” Clara asked Stacy, standing up and offering her hand.

Stacy took Clara’s hand, and looked at Grr’wa. Grr’wa gave himself a once-over, seemed to decide that he had groomed a sufficient amount of blood off of himself, and trotted over to Stacy.

“Can you really talk to my cat?” Stacy asked the Doctor as they all made their way out of the wooded area.

“Yes,” the Doctor affirmed.

“What does Rusty have to say then?”

“His full name is Master of the Seven Blocks Rusty Grr’wa,” the Doctor said. “And he’d prefer to be called Grr’wa. It’s his secret name. All cats have three names.”

“Grr’wa,” Stacy said, testing the sound of it. Finally, she gave a nod. She seemed please.

Clara gave the Doctor a look, “A ‘Deep and inscrutable singular Name?’”

“Exactly,” Grr’wa affirmed.

“Exactly,” the Doctor seconded.

“Eliot? Really?” Clara said.

“He was curious. I let him know,” the Doctor said with a shrugged.

“Hmm. Well, you’d know about inscrutable singular Name’s, wouldn’t you?” Clara teased.

The Doctor made a face at her.

“What’s ‘inscrutable’ mean?” Stacy asked.

“It means he’s trying to be cool by being mysterious, but he’s not very cool at all,” Clara explained.

The Doctor made _another_ face.

Stacy laughed. “What else does Grr’wa say about me?”

“I care for her very much. I must protect her,” Grr’wa stated.

“He loves you and cares for you,” the Doctor offered.

“My fur is soft. She may always touch it.”

“He likes it when you pet him.”

“You are taking liberty with my words!” Grr’wa complained half-heartedly.

“And he has a very big ego,” the Doctor said.

Clara snorted at that.

Stacy continued asking the Doctor questions about her cat as they all walked home. Later, Grr’wa promised to honor both the Doctor and Clara as he protected and patrolled the Seven Blocks. And the Throkgar was released back into the wild, with only a nasty bruise as a memory of his exciting day. Stacy kept the secret of the magicians and the talking cats, and the only sign that anything weird had happened was the strange crater.


End file.
